


Taking out the Trash

by hakura0



Series: Superbatfam [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, alternate first meeting, bruce kind of is too, clark is crushing, pre-superbat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-08-12 04:58:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7921423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hakura0/pseuds/hakura0
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things go down in Gotham, and Superman chances the Dark Knight's displeasure by ignoring city boundaries and going to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taking out the Trash

Clark wasn't sure how, exactly, it had come to this. It sounded dramatic thinking about it that way but part of him couldn't help it.

He had done, he thought, fantastically well in staying apart from this kind of behavior. That went double for Superman.

Sure, it wasn't something that he could help all the time. He wasn't human but he was close enough.

Typically it was easier not to act on these kinds of thoughts. They would fade quickly enough until they were just a memory.

This time...

Clark bit his lip, realizing far too late that somewhere in his reverie his gaze had returned to the Batman's mouth. 

Again.

He looked away quickly, hoping that the other man hadn't noticed and feeling like a teenager. This, he was almost certain as he peered back over out of the corner of his eye, only happened to him.

Metropolis was close enough to Gotham that he had heard of the Batman of course. Nothing solid, really; mostly just stories about the bogeyman haunting the city's criminals.

The Gotham City Police Department had, from what he could tell, something a tenuous relationship with 'the Bat' according to what he read. 

He was a vigilante, and no two people seemed able to agree on him past that. He was everything from a necessary evil to a protector to a madman, the devil they knew or the hero that they deserved.

But the crime rate's rise in Gotham had hit a wall around the first year that he appeared, according to Wikipedia. There were very rarely serious injuries caused by him, the criminals he apprehended were left for the police, and he had yet to find a single death attributed to him.

Batman had stayed out of Metropolis and, out of professional courtesy and after that research, Clark left Gotham to him.

He kept to that until he heard something about a break-out at Arkham. Like most of Metropolis he knew Arkham as a psychiatric prison, more or less. The Daily Planet had run a few articles on it but none that he'd written.

He watched the news coverage streaming on his computer, the scattered information. 

It was right there.

In less than five minutes he was at what looked like the heart of the conflict. It was dark, but he could easily make out the shadow amongst the fight, the skewed numbers and the reinforcements closing in.

He was almost too distracted watching the fight to join it, but he saw a lucky blow connect with the masked figure and got to work.

They stayed down, when he knocked them down; though Clark was sure they were more stunned than anything. It was an effect that he had sometimes. 

"I don't need your help." The Batman told him, even as he took down the last of the men who he had been fighting.

Before Clark could react, something whizzed past his head from Batman's hand and connected solidly with someone who had been coming up behind him.

The man didn't come up any closer.

"I'm not leaving until this situation is under control, I just want to help." Clark told him in his best official voice - it was the voice that came with the cape and the symbol on his chest. 

"Then either keep an eye on them -" With that, the Batman nudged one of the escapees with his boot, "- or save the police some trouble and get them back to Arkham. I have work to do."

The Batman was gone before Clark even realized that he was leaving, faded somewhere in the shadows. He thought that he caught a glimpse of movement on a rooftop, but his attention was on the dozen or so men on the ground around him. 

He didn't realize that he had started to smile until he caught the expression on the face of one of the more aware inmates.

He stopped himself and, as if to make a point, cracked his neck. 

"Right." He told the listening members of the audience. "It's time to go home."

The question he didn't ask, wrestling over the logistics of carrying them all, was how. Clark looked around, eyes briefly lighting on an alley. 

Five minutes later he was carrying an emptied dumpster that now contained going on fifteen inmates. After another five minutes they were safely in one of Arkham's still secure holding cells, and he had returned the dumpster to its rightful place.

He found the next dumpster before he found the Batman, an almost luminescent white 'S' chalked onto the top of it that his eyes just happened to catch.

When he opened the lid, there were at least half a dozen pairs of eyes looking back at him and a good deal more trash than the first.

On his way to Arkham once more he passed the Batman, perched on the edge of a roof and surveying the city, fingertips pressed to where his ear would be like he was listening to a radio.

Their eyes met and held for a long moment, and then Clark could have sworn he saw the corner of the Batman's mouth twitch into an almost-smile. 

He leaped forward before Clark could react, and it wasn't until he caught the sound of metal on brick and saw his trajectory swinging up again, the cape billowing behind him that he breathed.

He adjusted his grip on the dumpster and sped up, the smiling to himself again when the memory of that almost-smile crossed his mind. 

The night goes on like that - dumpsters full of escaped prisoners, glimpses of the Batman and the bewildered expressions on the faces of the police and guards.

Clark was returning the last dumpster when Batman slid out from the shadows

"Vandalism," Clark started to say, "I'm surprised, Batman."

It was meant to be a joke, lighter than it had actually come out - serious and businesslike. The Batman looked at him, and didn't smile.

"It's chalk." The response was rough, flat. Clark had a feeling that was very intentional. "Something will wash it off."

"I should make sure that I didn't miss any dumpsters." Clark tells him, raising his hand to gesture behind him with his thumb.

"You didn't." The Bat tells him easily. He shakes, very slightly, but does not smile - Clark has been watching very carefully.

There is something different about his breathing, Clark realizes, if not the way he's standing. 

There is something different about the way he's acting like the man standing in front of him is just that - a man. An interloper even.

Clark almost wants to thank him for it but instead he looks more closely at the the Batman's chest.

"You have a broken rib - and a pair of fractures. You should get them looked at." Clark tells him without thinking. He waits until his eyes have changed focus, until the skin of the world is back on again to look up at his face - professional courtesy.

"Mind your own business." the Batman tells him, and Clark sees him move this time, sees the grappling hook and watches him vanish upwards.

He could follow but instead he says, "So you know - I didn't look." 

When he's even more certain that no one can hear he curses, and then he goes home.

There is dark footage the next day as Clark sips his coffee; articles about Superman taking out Gotham's trash.

He winces, a little behind his glasses but ignores it for the most part. 

Across the bay, Bruce Wayne sees the photo on the cover of the paper and smiles again.


End file.
